When I got back in the evening, they were watching TV. They’d had it repaired that same afternoon. I sat with them long enough to have a smoke, then went to my room. For the first time I closed the door. It took me ages to get to sleep, because ever since I’d stopped drinking I’d suffered from insomnia. I heard them moving around the apartment, between the bathroom and the hallway, and for a few minutes I also heard their voices, with Serena laughing and Glauco calling her an idiot. Then they closed their bedroom door. After a while I heard the bedsprings creaking. I switched on the lamp and started reading. When Serena went to the bathroom, she must have noticed the light filtering from under my door because I heard her laugh.

The next morning Glauco left early to look for a studio to rent and Serena brought me my coffee in bed. She was wearing the red robe, open at the chest.

“Make room,” she said, sitting down on the bed while I was drinking coffee. “Why did you keep it?” she said, touching the hem of the robe.

“I thought you’d still need it.”

“This rag?” she said, laughing. Then she stroked the blanket. “You don’t look rested,” she said.

“I haven’t slept much,” I said.

“Neither have I,” she said.

“It must have been the flight,” I said, thinking about the time, two years earlier, when I’d kissed her surrounded by suitcases.

“You could say that,” she said, laughing. Then I told her I had to finish getting my books together, making it clear I thought she should get the hell out. She was shocked for a moment, then shrugged and laughed again. “Strange,” she said. “You were always the strangest of Glauco’s friends.”

When I was alone, I peered into my cup. There was still a little coffee left and I finished it. Then I stretched out again on the bed and lay there listening to the noise of the diggers.

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